RECIPE: THUMBPRINT COOKIES

I'm on a cookie-making spree. Maybe it's the holidays, but more than likely it's because I love cookies. Plain and simple. On a recent baking date with friends we made this easy recipe for Thumbprint cookies (we modified it a bit). The kids loved mixing the dough, sneaking little bits and stabbing their fingers to make room for the sweet jam.

Ingredients:
1 cup almonds
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup whole spelt flour
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons fruit juice sweetened jam

Preheat oven to 350°F. Put almonds and oats in a food processor and pulse until coarsely ground. Transfer to a large bowl and add flour, oil, syrup and salt. Stir to combine well.

Roll walnut-sized balls of the dough in the palm of your hand to form each cookie, then arrange on two large baking sheets, spacing cookies 2 inches apart.

Press your thumb gently down into the centre of each cookie to make an indentation. Spoon a bit of jam to fit each indentation. NOTE: we ran out of jam so we added a cranberry and two dark chocolate chips to each cookie and that was just as tasty.

Bake cookies until golden brown and just firm around the edges, 15 to 20 minutes.

Enjoy!